December 17-20, 2021 The rest of the cruise

After dinner on Thursday night we were taken to a Coffee House in Rudesheim. The specialty of this Coffee House was strong coffee, brandy and whipped cream. A couple of cubes of sugar and brandy were put in a coffee mug and while mixing the sugar and brandy it was lit. While the brandy/sugar mixture was still aflame the coffee was poured in. Finally a dollop of whipped cream with chocolate sprinks was put on top. After we all raised a toast with this delicious coffee a pianist/singer was introduced who was going to lead us in some Christmas carols. Unfortunately, the first sing-a-long was Sweet Caroline (oh! oh! oh!). Not long after that we were singing YMCA. Fortunately, there was some dance music that we danced to. We were one of two couples on the dance floor. The final indignity was the "Chicken Dance". We keep reminding ourselves that the coffee was good. Friday we docked at Ludwigshafen with the intent to take an excursion to Romantic Heidelberg and Christmas Markets. Having been to Heidelberg previously our plan was to skip the Castle tour and just enjoy the Markets. Unfortunately, the day before we found out the Heidelberg Christmas Markets were cancelled. Instead we went to a large Mall that was right beside our dock. It was all high end goods and was very crowded. The people watching was outstanding. Strasbourg, France was the city besides Cologne that we were looking forward to visiting. The Christmas Markets in Strasbourg are among the best in Europe. There are four of the markets spread around Strasbourg, two of them surrounding the Cathedrale de Notre Dame. We enjoyed browsing and sampled our first mulled wine. The plan was to find a nice French cafe for lunch before returning to the ship. However, it was a cold damp day and the walk from our bus to the Cathedral had been long and tiring so we took the first bus back to the AmaLucia. Before leaving on this trip we had broached the possibilitiy of sometime in the future renting an AirBnB in Strasbourg for a couple of weeks. While Strasbourg is a wonderful city we decided it might be too big for what we want to do. Today, Monday, was our last port of call and turned out to be our favorite. Riquewihr is reputed to be one of the most beautiful small towns in France. It was the inspiration for the town in Disney's blockbuster movie, Frozen. Kelsey tell us if you recognize it. It was about a 45 minute bus ride to Riquewihr and we were immediately captivated with its beauty and charm. The whole town was like walking around in a fairy tale. There were Christman Markets that we enjoyed as well as many wonderful shops. We returned to the ship/boat at 1:00. At 2:45 we were bussed to a parking lot (!) where four nurses came out and gave us a rapid Covid test so we could get on our plane tomorrow. Good news. We were both negative. Bad news. We leave the boat at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow for the airport. Lynda is not happy but has our bags packed. While there were a few disappointments on the trip we still had a wonderful time. After all, we were traveling again. 1